My name is pronounced "Male-e"; I was named after a somewhat-affluent friend of my parents, Melie Manning.  Melie and his wife were unable to conceive a male heir to perpetuate the family name, so he promised my parents a hefty sum if they would name their next son after him.  My parents honored the agreement but Melie died before he could fulfill his promise, thus I inherited his name--a name I detested as a youth because my peers occasionally taunted me, with jeers like:  "Melie is a girl's name!"  However, as an adult, I realized that it is a unique name and I embraced it.  My mother is a farmer's daughter from NC and my father was a retired soldier from RI.  At heart I am a barefooted country-boy from the boondocks  and possibly the only person you know who has picked cotton...which is sure to conflict with the sophisticated/urbane image some of my Readers might have of me. My fascination with English began at an early age; I learned to spell/read almost before I could construct a proper sentence--actually, I still haven't quite gotten the knack of it!  I began writing poetry in 1975, at age twenty, with an eigth-grade education:  Bored, lonely, thinking about my teenage sweetheart, I decided to write the lyrics for a song.  As an audiophile, I like a variety of music and I enjoyed the creative process so much that I entertained the notion of a songwriting career.  However, several months later, while soliciting feedback on my "song" collection, I heard the words that would change the course of my life, "These aren't songs, they're poems."  Years after publishing a Selected Poems collection I completed a Revised and Enlarged edition entitled "Little Boy Blue."  In fact, the poetry and prose featured on this site are from same.